Reports

Turning the Tide: Integrated marine planning in New Zealand. The report distils lessons from the Sea Change Tai Timu Tai Pari marine spatial planning project in the Hauraki Gulf, which was completed in 2016, and compares it with international best practice.

“Sea Change was the most ambitious marine planning project to be undertaken in New Zealand. Completing the plan was a major achievement,” said EDS Policy Director and report author Raewyn Peart.

“The project was ambitious and innovative. We compared it to leading overseas marine planning processes and found that the Hauraki Gulf project was world-leading in a number of respects.

“Most notable was the catchment-to-sea approach, embedding mātauranga Māori into the planning process, and using a stakeholder-led collaborative process for the plan’s development.

“One of the weaker elements of the Sea Change project has been implementation which requires a number of agencies from central and local government to engage together. This has proven challenging for them but we are hopeful that the Government will provide much-needed leadership on this shortly.

“The conclusion from our review of the process is that Sea Change provides a solid base and very rich lessons which we can build on for future marine planning projects in New Zealand.

“There are other areas which would benefit from such an integrated marine planning approach, the Marlborough Sounds being a case in point.

“EDS is currently undertaking further research on how marine spatial planning can be embedded within New Zealand’s marine management system,” concluded Ms Peart.

The Environmental Defence Society has released a new research report aimed at exploring how habitat banking could contribute to the management of New Zealand’s biodiversity. The reportis available to download at no charge.

Biobanking, where a formal structure is set up akin to a trading platform for habitat, holds some promise as a policy instrument to improve such transactions which are presently ad hoc and lack definition. But this report shows biobanking needs to be developed carefully so as not to do more harm than good. Internationally the approach has a history of poor implementation often because of bad design.

The report’s author, Dr Marie Brown, said that the way offsetting was undertaken at present was often deeply flawed and led to net biodiversity loss.

“Key weaknesses include poor compliance, lack of expertise in implementing offset projects and an inability to carry out offsets in advance of impacts. Biobanking could help address some of these issues,” said Dr Brown.

“The mitigation hierarchy – avoid, remedy, mitigate - should be pursued vigilantly and offsetting brought to play only where there are unavoidable, residual impacts on biodiversity. But the weak policy framework for offsetting must be addressed first.

“The report’s overall conclusion is that biobanking has a potentially useful role in formalising an offsetting regime but there is more work to do before it could be credibly used in New Zealand, including strengthening the legal basis for offsetting,” said Marie Brown.

The purpose of this project is to explore whether the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) has delivered desired environmental outcomes for New Zealand. It is intended to complement wider assessments of the efficacy of the Act. The project is focused on gathering the best available information on the state of the environment in New Zealand and the influence of the RMA on that state. This evidence is intended to help enable an informed discussion on the future of the RMA.The RMA was the first legislation internationally to enshrine the concept of sustainability in its overriding purpose which is ‘to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources’. Now in its 25th year, the profile of the Act remains high amongst observers of environmental and economic management and it is highly visible compared with other legislation.

Often amended and much-discussed, the Act’s impact on economic and environmental outcomes is a common topic of conversation, although more the former than the latter. Often missing from this discussion is an empirical element. The critical issue really is, has the RMA delivered on its environmental goals and if not, why not? This is the key question that this report seeks to answer.

This policy paper canvasses lessons learnt from the BP Gulf oil spill and international best practice to develop practical recommendations for the way forward to strengthen environmental management of New Zealand's EEZ.

Environmental Protection Authorities (EPAs) are a common feature in other developed countries. There is much to be learnt from their experiences. To inform the design of the New Zealand model, EDS has undertaken preliminary research on EPAs in Western Australia, Victoria, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and Denmark.

This paper draws on the results of this research. It is informed by previous work undertaken by EDS on the operation of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) more generally, and on the effectiveness of landscape protection and coastal and marine management in particular. The paper also reflects EDS's long experience of litigating on RMA matters. A draft paper was circulated for peer review and this final paper has also benefited from the knowledge and insights of many of the reviewers identified in the acknowledgements.